Consumer adoption of mobile devices, such as cellular telephones, laptop computers, pagers, personal digital assistants, and the like, is increasing. These devices can be used for a diversity of purposes ranging from basic communications, to conducting business transactions, to managing entertainment media, and a host of other tasks. Additional enhancements, such as location-awareness features, e.g., global positioning system (GPS) tracking, also enable mobile device users to monitor their position and present their location via a local display. With such functionality available, it is now possible to expand the usefulness of these mobile devices into yet other service arenas, such as, for example, the realm of credit card services.
Therefore, there is a need for an approach that can efficiently and effectively provide virtual credit card services.